Home sweet home ministries is a religious organization that has been helping the community of Bloomington since 1917. Their focus is to help the homeless. On home sweet home ministries website they say that you can help by volunteering at their soup kitchen, or Bloomington in general, buying from their thrift store in Lincoln Illinois and donating clothing or money. According to their website Bloomington’s homelessness statistics are not as bad as they are in other parts of the united states but that does not mean that the homeless here in Bloomington do not still need our help. There are three types of homelessness. They are situational / transitional, episodic, and chronic. Situational would be if someone loses a job, or is facing a housing, healthcare or financial crisis. It could also involve someone who is fleeing domestic violence, families or those just released from a mental hospital. The department of housing and urban development defines homelessness as “people who are living in shelters, someone’s couch or outside” “people who will not have a night time residence in 14 days and lack other support networks” “families with children who are not in stable housing and appear to remain that way” and “those fleeing domestic violence, with no other residence, and no other support networks”. It is hard to get exact numbers or statistics of how many people are experiencing homelessness since not all are staying at shelters and hence cannot be tracked. The US department of Housing and Urban Development estimated that on a single night there might be 633,782 people homeless in the United States, of those 62,619 were veterans and 38% were people in family households. In recent years, a problem that is mentioned on the home sweet home website is that the working poor are becoming more at risk of becoming homeless. To help this situation Home sweet home ministries shelter, also called the Billy Shelpler center offers separate men’s and women’s floors. They are also one of the only shelters to accept families but families may be separated based on the age of the children. At the shelter, they offer safe harbor, food, clothing, toiletries, case management, and ministry support. In order qualify to stay at the shelter the person or family must be currently homeless or facing eviction. Home sweet home serves people with connections to Mclean, Livingston, Dewitt, Logan, Woodford, LaSalle and Piatt counties. To enter the shelter people must have a current photo id and a clearance card issued by the police department. This shelter differs from others such as salvation army in the area since they have scheduled in-take hours from 9:30 am to 11 am Monday through Friday during that time people can just walk in and at all other times they will need to complete a telephone screening. According to the needs assessment minutes advisory meeting in 2014 path had received 209 calls seeking information about homeless services the previous year, it is also mentioned that Bloomington has three tent cities. We think that we can help home sweet home help the homeless by donating clothing and money. We plan to do this by hosting clothing drives around campus and through organizations on campus. Since it is technically winter we think clothing would be a necessary need of home sweet home that we could help with since they can then either use the clothing to give out to those who seek shelter or to sell out of their store in Lincoln Illinois. On the Home Sweet Home website, they say that the store revenue represents 20% of the funding for the services they offer.

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Work cited:

Beyer, Beverly A., and Sharon M. Mills. 2003. "Experiencing Homelessness in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois: Resources and Needs for Shelter and Supportive Services." Report, Applied Social Research Unit, Illinois State University, Normal. Available: http://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=grh

Kravitz, Jason. "HUDNo.12-191." HUDNo.12-191. US Department of Housing and Urban Development, 10 Dec. 2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2017

Mart, Home Sweet Home Mission. "Recycle & Donate." Home Sweet Home Mission Mart. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.

Ministries, Home Sweet Home. "Help the Homeless in Bloomington IL." Home Sweet Home Ministries. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2017 "Minutes of the Needs Assessment Advisory Group."  N.p., 2 May 2014. Web. 15 Feb. 2017 http://www.mcleancountyil.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3739

Path training in service powerpoint on homeless services in the area by Jeremy Wisner ( path volunteer) with input from path staff.